Pirate Joe's

sushipup1August 16, 2013

A story from the SF newspaper about a Canadian who buys TJ products and carts them across the border to sell in Canada. I think the guy's brilliant, and i really liked the lengths he went to, especially the nail polish!

My brother lives in Bellingham WA, right across the border from Vancouver BC. He says that while he likes Trader Joe's, he has to go there during the week because on the weekends it's overrun with Canadians. Likewise the local Sam's Club; the locals in Bellingham have to do their shopping on weekdays. It's great for the county with all the sales tax revenue coming in, but it's a PITA if you want to shop on the weekends.

I think the last year there was a sales tax on food items in Washington was about 1980 :) But that doesn't mean shoppers won't be buying paper goods, cleaning products, gas on their trips to shop.

And every trader joe's, Costco is overwhelmed with shoppers on weekends. It's a toss up, do I go during the week and schlep all my heavy items in and out of the car, or go on a weekend, fight crowds but have DH to wrestle with those big packages. I came very close to leaving a bag of potting mix in the parking lot one time, I dragged it off the stack into the cart and paid for it, then couldn't get it out again and into the back of my explorer when I got outside.